Many accounts of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s decision this week to cancel next month's state visit to the U.S. put it down to simmering outrage over revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency has been tapping the communication channels of top Brazilian officials, starting with hers. In truth, the decision probably has as much to do with politics.

Latin America’s stock markets have provided a nail-biting roller-coaster for investors. Prices roared higher before the global financial crisis in 2007, and then collapsed. They have failed to regain those highs, despite values almost doubling in 2009. This year has been particularly poor. While Western markets have been in buoyant mood in 2013, Latin America shares have fallen by nearly 20pc.

The new U.S. ambassador to Brazil landed in the capital Monday amid increasing tensions over a U.S. spy program that aggressively targets Latin America’s biggest nation, reportedly including the personal communications of its president. Ambassador Liliana Ayalde is a career diplomat with three decades of experience and a former ambassador to Paraguay. She most recently served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, covering Cuba, Central America and the Caribbean.

The United States' relationship with Brazil is on the rocks after more National Security Agency revelations, this time that Washington spied on President Dilma Rousseff. She is so furious that she has threatened to cancel her trip to the US next month — the only full state visit scheduled at the White House this year and the first by a Brazilian head-of-state in two decades.

The National Security Agency's spy program targeted the communications of the Brazilian and Mexican presidents, and in the case of Mexico's leader accessed the content of emails before he was elected, said the journalist who obtained secret documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist who lives in Rio de Janeiro, told the news program "Fantastico'' in an interview that a document dated June 2012 shows that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's emails were being read. The document is dated a month before Pena Nieto was elected.

IOC inspectors are sure to deliver a clear message to organizers of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics when they arrive for a two-day visit: end delays and speed up. For their part, Rio officials are expected to promise that preparations are on course after a late start. Privately, they'll try to soothe concerns about a slowdown in landing local sponsorships, worries over hotel space and transportation and recent protests over big spending on major sports events.

When the economic history of the decade is written someday, there very well may be a chapter about the spring and summer of 2013, when money that had been pouring into emerging market countries shifted the other way. Recently, the economies of emerging markets are looking dismal with both currencies plummeting in value against the dollar.

Antonio Patriota, Brazil's foreign minister, stepped down Monday night amid a diplomatic row with neighboring Bolivia. President Dilma Rousseff's office issued a brief statement, saying Patriota had submitted his resignation and would be replaced by Brazil's representative at the United Nations, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo.